SEO Backlinks Aren’t As Powerful As They Once Were

Are SEO Backlinks Effective?In the past, if you asked any SEO professional what backlinks effect had on your website, they would probably tell you a good deal. However, today that is not the case. SEO backlinks do not seem to have as much power as they once held.

Google realized many years ago that SEO backlinks were needed to get better rankings. This search engine found out that SEO simply is not just about making sure your content, headings, and titles are optimized. This is how link-building businesses were formed -a need for link-selling brokers and link directories came into play. And with that came the birth of forum spam using links, reciprocal links, and spam comments.

Unfortunately, over time, Google lost to spam. In 2012, the Penguin algorithm was introduced, and then Hummingbird came into play. Now, when links are used, Google is willing to discard the low-quality ones. Links are still very important to your content. It is just uncertain as to how much power they hold compared to the past.

It is fair to say that SEO backlinks are still needed. The strength of these links is most likely compared to when Google first started with link building. When questioned about if link-building campaigns are allowed or why Google does not use other ranking factors that are harder to manipulate than backlinks, Google responded back, stating, “ First, backlinks as a signal have a much less significant impact compared to when Google Search first started out many years ago. With hundreds of strong ranking signals, they are certain that they’re allowed to be used to rank the most applicable and beneficial findings for all inquiries.”

They then went on to say that some backlinking tactics are basically linked spam per the Google spam policy. They noted that Google has various algorithms ready to detect unnatural links at large and void them. Anyone that spams or spends money on links has no knowledge of whether the funds they spend on link building are truly worth it or not. It is very much likely that they’re just throwing away their cash by including all those spammy backlinks. This holds true as soon as the spam links are seen, they are deleted.

Do not fret though. Google still encourages everyone to use SEO backlinks. Natural links are the best to use, and they will assist Google in learning about what your site is all about. Google itself says that links are how it finds different web pages.

Google says that there is a good chance that another web page will have content that is similar to yours. They said it is very beneficial on your part to open up the lines of communication with that web page. They also feel that it is an excellent way for new ideas to be created simply by looking at the hot topics that are in your niche. Link graphs can be used to show how your site is connected to another and can also be utilized to find spammy sites.

Regardless of how powerful links are compared to many years ago, know that SEO backlinks are needed. If you are not certain how to obtain the best links, you can contact Local SEO Jacksonville in Jacksonville, FL. They can assist you in various search engine optimization services, as well as web marketing, and much more.

Let’s Compare SEO & PPC

SEO/PPC differenceYou will find that there are several acronyms involved in the field of internet marketing and it can be tough to keep up. However, there are two such acronyms all digital marketers have to be aware of and they are SEO & PPC. When you are looking to improve your focus and boost the visibility of your brand, you can take a closer look at SEO & PPC for deciding the approach that will be more suitable to your marketing budget. Keep in mind that SEO &PPC are two sides of the same coin. They are both trying to get your company noticed on the web.

SEO/PPC difference

The clue for finding out the difference between SEO/PPC lies in the name of both these approaches. SEO or search engine optimization optimizes your site content for improving its ranking in the SERPs. These results are many times referred to as organic search results. Pay per click or PPC on the other hand involves the promotion of your website or its content by using paid alternatives available on your selected ad platforms. Some of the more popular PPC campaign platforms are Bing, Google, Amazon, and Facebook. When you are paying per click, you can find the ad close to the top position of the SERP. The optimized content is also going to feature close to the top spots however, it will always be below the paid content. Like everything in life, there are some exceptions and several caveats for both SEO & PPC. If you are a good internet marketer, you will be aware of how to use both of them effectively.

What is the better alternative between SEO/PPC?

Is there a better alternative involved while selecting either SEO or PPC? It depends basically on what you are looking for in terms of results. Both these internet marketing approaches have their advantages and they can be useful at a certain point in time during your campaign. There are fewer costs involved in SEO, excluding the expenses of content creation and time spent on managing the content. But, PPC can bring you the clientele immediately at least for short term advantage.

For most business managers and website owners, investment in SEO is a wise decision in long run. This decision process is well-documented on the internet. The importance of the research process for an average customer cannot be underestimated therefore, having the content ready for answering the queries and being available during this phase will always be extremely critical. Conducting a successful organic SEO campaign means you are saving money on paid clicks. However, in some cases, a successful PPC campaign will pay for itself.

A cheat sheet

Using PPC: You need to use the PPC approach when the promotion is time-sensitive such as in the case of live events, or discounts, or sales seasons for your products and services. PPC is useful while launching a new product or service and when you are looking for maximum exposure. You can profile the brand well in a competitive market by using PPC. It can be used when you are looking to target a specific audience or demographic. When your website is not designed for SEO viz. it doesn’t have blogs etc., you will be required to use PPC. Sometimes you do not have the time for managing the SEO. Here you can opt for PPC.

Using SEO: When you are looking to build a solid foundation for continuous traffic that will not be paid, you need to use the SEO approach. Sometimes when you are looking to develop your DA, Trust Flow, etc., you need to use SEO. SEO is necessary especially when you looking to build an information portal or thought leadership.

The verdict for the comparison between SEO/PPC

After reading all the information above, you may still be looking to decide what approach will be best suitable for your case between SEO & PPC? Keep in mind that most site owners will always work on SEO as their long-term goal that is going to need continuous input. However, using PPC campaigns can also boost SEO. After the proper brand exposure, people are more likely to opt for organic results. If you are offering useful content on your website, it may be shared on other sites and social media. These backlinks are great for SEO. When you are undertaking a PPC campaign ensure that it is being seen by the right audience. Remember, there is a sizable fake market on the internet with crawlers, bots, click farms taking a share of the marketing budget.

For a better understanding of these internet marketing approaches, and if your business lies in Jacksonville, FL area, get in touch with Local SEO Jacksonville. They will help you in defending against shady practices and make sure that your ads are being seen by humans.

GMB Profiles: Tips and Tricks to Land on Page One With Your Law Firm

GMB Profiles: Tips and Tricks to Land on Page One With Your Law FirmLaw firm SEO is essential when your goal is to land on page one. And with your GMB (Google My Business) profile, you have a better chance of showing up on this page and being featured with not only a link to your website but also reviews and contact information.

In this article, we will discuss the top tips and tricks to land on page one with your law firm SEO strategies using your GMB profile.

There are many tricks and tips for attorney SEO that can help a law firm website land a page one spot just using the information submitted from their Google My Business profile. Consider using any one of these tips and tricks to assist with your law firm SEO strategies.

1. Get specific about your law firm. If you are a law firm that specializes in workman’s compensation, list Workman’s Comp lawyer or something similar to this. If you are a divorce attorney, list divorce attorney. Never list just a lawyer or attorney. Some will argue that they will not show up in as many searches. While that is true, know that you will rank higher when you specialize in a niche.

2. Obtain reviews from previous clients that were impressed or satisfied with your services. Think about yourself when looking at different products or services. Do you look at the reviews of what others have written? Or do you just go with the first service/product you find? Most of us will read reviews, so make sure you have plenty of these on your GMB profile. As an added benefit to these reviews, your GBM profile could see an increase in the SERPS, as Google is a huge fan of reviews.

3. In order to land on page one, you may consider using link building. Link building is a great tip of law firm SEO as Google can check how prominent you are- how well known you are online, as well as how valuable your firm is to those that are performing searches. This is where backlinking comes into place. When you have many backlinks, your site is more trusted by Google, as well as very prominent.

4. A great attorney SEO tip is to make sure you have completed your profile on your GMB. It is advised to have at least 50 images. If you are having trouble with this number, you need to at least have more images then your competition. Make sure that all names are accurate and correct, and use a video on your profile. You should also write a full business description and service description. This will also help you to optimize your business profile. Be sure to add in keywords that will be helpful when potential customers search law firms.

5. Remove duplicate content. If you have a few locations for your law firm, make sure that each location is only associated with one GMB profile. If a location has already been associated with another GMB, it will not appear on Google maps. If you do have a duplicate listing, it is easy to remove. Always remember to prioritize the listing that you want to be associated with your Google My Business account.

You can use your GMB listing to help your law firm land on page one of the SERPS. Remember for the best attorney SEO, you want to be as specific as you can about what type of lawyers your firm has. Always make sure you have plenty of reviews and have link building done. Your GMB profile should be filled out completely, and all duplicate content will need to be removed.
If you are not able to do this yourself for your law firm, consider hiring Local SEO Company for all your law firm SEO needs.

How Important Are Customer Reviews For Seo?

Why Customer Reviews Are Important for SEOIn order to have a happy life, you shouldn’t care that much about what people say about you. But when it comes to online businesses, this actually matters way more than you can imagine.

Besides trying to come up with new SEO ideas, in order to build some high-quality links and help your website rank well, you should also keep an eye on its day-to-day performance. Specifically, we’re talking about research, product development, sales fulfillment, or even customers service.

Forgetting about these aspects or even not caring about them that much can lead to a series of negative customer reviews, which can make you lose potential customers and even hinder your rankings.

Let’s take a few moments and understand how reviews can affect your SEO efforts, in both negative and positive ways.

They are actually user-generated content!

Just think about it: while you’re trying to integrate some specific keywords into your content, many of them feel very natural to the users who use them in reviews. And Google is seeing them as signals, therefore noticing your online presence.

Whether we’re talking about general keywords in your niche or long-tails, they are all necessary for your SEO strategy. Good reviews can take your ranking scores a bit higher, while negative reviews will bring you down if you are not careful.

They help you compete in your market!

Besides affecting your SERP rank, customer reviews can also affect your overall market performance.
Specifically, when somebody searches for a term in your niche, a list of results will be displayed. Some results have customer reviews, while some of them don’t.  Let’s take things logically: won’t you be tempted to check out the result with reviews, as It looks legit?

It was proven that people are more likely to trust an online business with a mix of reviews, whether they are positive or negative. By displaying these, a company shows that it’s far from being perfect, not to mention that it somehow guarantees that the reviews are real!

They provide a lot of value for local SEO campaigns!

When a user leaves a review, which contains local references, your local SEO efforts receive an unexpected boost. This review is a small piece of organic content, after all. The more you get, the stronger your presence will be in Google’s eyes.
The more positive customer reviews integrating local terms you’re competing for, the better for your business.

They help you establish a relationship with clients

When somebody wants to buy something online, Google offers the information about the product or service they are after, giving the best possible options available. As for customer reviews, these are real deal sealers.

Some people like to go through a couple of reviews before making the final decision, so it’s obvious that what past customers have to say matters a lot. Their opinion makes your business feel genuine and if the reviews are good, potential new clients want to feel the same thing.

Make sure you always answer the reviews, including negative ones, as you will help people know you better.

Keeping up with all reviews can be a bit overwhelming sometimes. If you want to build relationships with your clients, but also improve your presence in Google, SEO Jacksonville is here to help. Competitive search engine optimization packages, able to help you make a difference for your business, are just one call away, at (904) 425-9679.

Effective tips for bettering the local SEO position of your site designed using WordPress

Optimize your WordPress Site for Local SEOOf all the open-source CMS platforms that exist, WordPress is definitely one of the most popular, thanks to its resourcefulness, flexibility and convenience of use, including the fact that the system can be used for free. No wonder then that, nearly 29% of all sites are based on WordPress and the CMS system has been downloaded over 47 million times till date. Another good reason for the CMS platform’s widespread popularity is that it is highly SEO-compatible in that the system can be used easily even by those who are technically not savvy.
A site designed and developed using WordPress can be incredibly crucial for local or smalltime businesses, intending to improve their local SEO ranking but may not have the wherewithal to opt for across-the-board online optimization strategies. Following are some simple yet effectual improvement techniques you can take advantage of so as to make your portal claim a position on the first SERP of Google or Yahoo.

1. Focus on organic link building

Your site’s local SEO standing is considerably influenced by the linking profile-the domains connecting to the site, back links quality, and link anchor text optimization. Do not expect to have organic links overnight and also do not anticipate quality links to start delivering instantly.

The emphasis should be on quality more than quantity-Strive towards having as many quality back links as possible simply because just one such back link is always more valuable than innumerable links with questionable quality.
Be on the lookout for prospective link building openings-Maximize your opportunities for link building by taking advantage of a competitive analysis apparatus that will redirect to competitors instead of you.

Anchor text optimization-Make the anchor text optimal for local SEO search, like integrating the name of your practice or the locality of the city where your business is situated.

2. Content optimization is the key

The textual and visual content of the site is as important as its security standard, loading time, and structure. Pay attention to creating persuasive and engaging content first before you can think of optimizing the same. You do not need to tear your hair out when it comes to on-page optimization; just use the Yoast SEO plugin.

3. Make your site smartphone friendly

You can take it for granted over 70% of your customers will find you using their smartphones. Additionally, Google is according greater significance to sites that are more smartphone-friendly. Use a perceptive WP theme, design the site keeping smartphone users in mind, and make the most of a mobile app for heightening the smartphone friendliness of your site.

4. Make the site more responsive and speedy

Take all the necessary measures to ensure that your website loads within 2-3 seconds on any handheld or tabletop device.

5. Let your URLs reflect location keywords

In case you have several landing pages, where every page is devoted to attracting clients in a specific locality, make sure you embed the location keyword in the URL in order to enrich the experience of the user.

6. Consolidate your WordPress portal with Google My Business

Get your Google Your Business (if you do not have one yet) that will club together significant parameters influencing local rankings including but not limited to business description, user feedbacks, and physical nearness.
If you own a local business and want to increase its visibility across the web, you can visit www.localseojacksonville.biz or make a call to 904.425.9679.

Not Utilizing Local SEO Is A Big Mistake

Not Utilizing Local SEO Is A Big MistakeIf you expect SEO to work for you, then you’ll have to incorporate what’s referred to as Local SEO. Local SEO is a sub group of highly specialized SEO that targets promotion via your location. Not using Local SEO is a major mistake too many webmasters and marketers make.

You can’t sell anything if people don’t know where you are, especially if you’re promoting an offline product or business like a restaurant or plumbing or pet service. People can see your website full of bells and whistles but if your location isn’t prominent on each page of your website then you’ll not gt the advantage of higher rankings and diversity. Your location can be a key ingredient to business sales and profit and an attraction to surfers who are looking for goods and services in a particular area.

Why is this important? For far too many reasons and we’ll cut to the chase to show how to utilize Local SEO to your advantage.

First of all, Google doesn’t index websites but instead web pages. Each page on your website has to be optimized with every aspect that can be exploited. Of course you’ll promote what you do or sell and use all kinds of terminology and keywords, keygroups, and keyphrases, backlinks, tags etc., but your location is a gold mine for targeted organic traffic which is what you want the most of. Let’s say you’re selling plumbing supplies in Hickleberry, Ohio. You want to be THE seller of plumbing supplies in Hickleberry so you need to beat the competition. To do this you incorporate the keywords, Hickleberry, Ohio, and the zip code and street address. This is part of not only your webpage copy but also in any pics, videos, graphics, cartoons, and blog posts.

This spreads out the fact that you’re selling plumbing supplies and services in that area and Google will index you at the highest if your competitors don’t use equally optimized Local SEO. You can actually rule the roost if you do things right.
Not only do you emphasize that you’re in that area but you can take advantage of other things in the area like annual events, celebrities, news. Every town or city has some sort of historical site or sporting event, school events, parades and more. You go out and get some video and pics of these events and post and talk about them on your site’s blog. You’ll get the attention of Google and other search engines because people will be searching for such data from people who not only live in the area but visitors and tourists as well.

In addition, you post about these locales on your social media pages with links to your blog. Google loves that social media interaction because it makes your site look like it is serving the public and is alive and kicking.

So that’s why you must have, at all costs, a Local SEO campaign going and hiring the best SEO company to implement it.

Knowing The Value Of Backlinks

Knowing The Value Of BacklinksNot too long ago, websites were being punished for having too many backlinks, but this was due to the earlier trend of websites rising to the top of the search engines because they had a bazillion backlinks. Well since that’s no longer the case and severely penalized, smarter and more effective ways of acquiring and utilizing backlinks takes center stage.

You must realize that the present trend is that Google will look at your backlinking profile and judge whether your site is legit and worthy of higher ranking.

Of course some people will use what is referred to as Black Hat techniques which is basically cheating and using various technologies to get the upper hand. As soon as one new Black Hat technique hits the webwaves, Google’s experts will devise another way to countermeasure those unscrupulous efforts and the game begins anew. It upsets the market now and then but honest webmasters and the search engine pros are in there swinging to get things as honest as possible.

Google wants their surfers to get quality content via their links. Quality means retention and not rejection. Surfers who keep running into spammy or criminal sites when they click on the top search engine rankings then they’ll look for greener pastures. That would mean less ad revenue and brand name power overall. Those old enough to remember how Yahoo lost their edge because Google provided a better venue.

So how do you get the boost in rankings via backlinks and not get into trouble? Here are a few more things to follow.
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Build great content that is on a site that is well constructed. Great content with the proper anchor texts that are clearly understood, diversified, and containing one or more keywords is essential. Waste nothing and leave nothing to chance. As you build up quality content like copy, pics, videos, then you can post some of it on social media sites without being hit for spam. People who like that content will engage with it and push it to the fore. The shared content should have a link back to your site and the more people share it on their blogs, social media pages, the more diversified and lively your site will look. Be careful as when Google sees a massive amount of backlinks they’ll get suspicious, however, if your site features something exclusive or proprietary and brand name data, then they’ll see it as a boost in popularity and not some spammy linking farm.

This means getting those authority site backlinks. Links from companies, professionals in the niche, fan bases, news sites, that people turn to to get the latest and best info regarding the niche your website focuses on, makes your site look like one that is of importance and value. When this happens you’ll be on your way to a more upwardly reputable SEO success.

Overall there are several other factors but these are the basics. These are the prominent ways to keep tabs on. When applying these approaches keep a keen eye on your statistics to see what is working and why. Then you’ll have a better map to guide you through.

Google’s Rumored Local Business Cards

Google's Rumored Local Business CardsIn another game changer for the SEO field, Google is reportedly working on a new way for local businesses to get indexed in a new way.

Unofficially called “Google Local Business Cards”, this new approach is only offered via invitation to brick and mortar local businesses. Previously, Google had experimented with soothing called ‘Candidate Cards’ which allowed political candidates to showcase their agendas. Now this process is being applied to business, especially local businesses. Google Local Business Cards is not open to e-commerce sites which could cause a major bone of contention as it may appear and actually be a leg up for the brick and mortar stores and the e-commerce businesses will be left in the dust.

The local businesses are displayed in a horizontal scrolling venue. Much like you’ll see on Facebook when you choose a video or a post. A horizontal scrolling bar featuring like minded content appears.

This new test may well usher in a new age for local SEO. The results only businesses and Google will know. You can bet this field test is going to have SEO pros, businesses, and Google sitting on the edge of their seats for a while.
Businesses who want to participate have to ask Google for an invitation.

Local SEO pros will be cleaning up with this new venue. SERPs have become more efficient and the traditional SEO tactics are being challenged. A website today is measured more by its interactivity than backlinking. Google wants to rid itself of any tactics and opportunities that hackers and spammers use to compromise the quality of their search engine results.

Google has been upending apple carts for over a year regarding SEO. They’ve not only changed algorithms without warning, but they’ve also minimized their communication with the SEO community. They’ve also implemented new AI systems like RankBat seems to be getting smarter every day. It’s so smart that one might expect it to provide the best results before a person even enters a search query.

These advances and tests of new procedures are all meant to make the surfer’s life more pleasurable online, especially when using Google. Google can’t afford to lose surfers because of rotten webmasters and marketers who exploit every avenue to get the high spots in the search results only to lead surfers to malware sites or other unscrupulous sites.

As much as a game changer and worrisome thing this is for hard working webmasters and SEO experts, in the end it’s the best thing for one and all.
For the time being, what the SEO pro should be doing is keeping a tab on this Google Local Business Cards new feature. Use keywords your sites use and see what happens in the search results. This will allow you to practice your keyword research and more to better take advantage of this new feature when it becomes available to other businesses that are web based. If you have local brick and mortar clients, then jump on this opportunity now. Don’t wait, ask for acceptance by Google and if approved, do the best job you can and wait for the results. Each and every statistic will be valuable in this process so don’t let an hour or day go by where you don’t analyze your statistics. You’ll be ahead of everyone else so that when this option goes live, you’ll be able to let your clients know you were on the ground floor and as an SEO pro, can better accommodate them to get their sites indexed professionally.

Overall, Google is doing this to make the search experience more efficient and trouble free. This bodes good for one and all and if successful, you’ll need to be on the ball to best utilize it.

Looking At Today’s Backlinks In SEO

Looking At Today's Backlinks In SEOBacklinks have been a valuable asset in SEO and it has had its ups and downs. In the old days certain tactics and strategies worked admirably, but today, those procedures might get you penalized by the search engines. Here is why we need to look at the value of what backlinks are and how you can better be at an advantage.

First of all you need to do some evaluation of your website. If you have backlinks coming in that aren’t beneficial then you’re in jeopardy. What the search engines are looking for now are backlinks that come from relevant sites, sites that provide organic traffic, and sites who have authority and good standing.

If you’re getting links coming in from a backlinks network like a web-ring, you need to get busy cleaning it up right away. These sites used to be useful but are a clear sign to Google and the other search engines that you’re just trying to gain advantage unfairly and providing the surfers with less than valuable content. These kinds of inbound links might be on websites no longer monitored or maintained and that calls for some real work. If you can, get them removed, if you can’t, well here’s to hoping.

Backlinks that come from sites or relevance that are of kindred niches, is far more important. They provide organic traffic that means surfers are actually looking for what your website has to offer. They won’t have to dig around to find something of value, the organic link takes them to what they’re looking for. Google sees this as important and that your site is providing a service to others. Get as many of these kinds links as possible but do so in ratio to the following variables of authority and good standing.

Sites that have proven themselves to their niches and are popular gain what is called authority and good standing, and trust. This level of character carries a huge amount of value. They’ve proven themselves over time to be trustworthy and ethical. To be linked to from them adds your site to that level. People who trust the authority site will see that the site trusts you. It’s a platform that means you’ve somehow earned that accolade and that will turn into lots of organic traffic and boost your chances of sales, leads, and conversions. It’s the best backlinks strategy you may want.

Don’t even think of coming up with or applying black hat tricks to your backlinks strategies. Google’s SE algorithm is getting better by the day. The old adage of “honesty is the best policy” is going to be the hallmark of SEO from now on. It thus behooves you to analyze your site, every site that is linking to you and get busy optimizing things so you look good in Google’s eyes.

So it’s not a matter of how many backlinks you have anymore, it’s a matter of relevance and authority, and trust. Without these you’re just asking for trouble. Just one major penalty and you could spend months or years getting your reputation and standing back. That’s why you use an SEO professional who can manage and fix backlinks. They usually know the tools to resolve the really tough problems.

Remember, backlinks are like testimonials are to one’s character. Getting the good ones means you’ll be looking good across the board.

SEO Is Becoming A Full Time Job

SEO Tips: SEO Is Becoming A Full Time JobIn the good old days, keyword stuffing, links, and spam were a great way to get your site listed in the search engines and the search engines loved these kinds of sites. It became an industry with all sorts of variations to a theme. Nowadays, however, those tactics aren’t the goldmine in SEO like they used to be.

Nowadays you’ve got to work for your rankings. You just can’t depend on backlinking or keywords anymore. You have to have your site mobile friendly, update quality content, have social media presence and interaction, email lists, advertising, proper design, page speed, accessibility, knowledge graph, local SEO, globalization and more.
You’ve got to incorporate all these options and it calls for lots of work and maintenance. Not like the old days where you could slap up a website with some bells and whistles, keywords and keyphrases, backlinking and let it ride.

Not any more.

Now you have to expand with promotion via social networking. Not just Facebook either but a presence on just about all the social networks and the small but growing ones. Of course Google wants you to use as many of their venues as possible and that helps your rankings as well, and they supply lots of free tools for webmasters and digital marketers.

Your site had better be mobile friendly as mobile computing is expanding at alarming speeds. So is voice search. Those two alone are the future of computer interaction as people are shying away from traditional laptops and desktops. All your data has to be properly structured as well. You have to make your site easy to access, load fast, easy to navigate, have lots of valid and relevant backlinks, copywriting that is nothing short of fluid and superb, videos and pictures well tagged and described and all of that with your location prominently mentioned in every post, email, ad, and whatever, especially with your social media marketing.

It’s becoming a 24 hour job to operate a website nowadays if you want to rise up to the top positions on Google. Professionals who do SEO are finding it much more frustrating and time consuming but only these professionals get the super top results. They have to do 5 times the amount of website analysis they did just a year ago and even then, Google’s updates and the rise of other trends can throw these experts off guard.